The Clique of Gold, Emile Gaboriau [if you liked this book .txt] 📗

The young girl paused, not understanding a word of all this stuff. But the old man said,—

“That is only the honey of the preface, the sweet syrup intended to conceal the bitterness of the medicine that is to follow. Go on, and you will understand.”

She continued to read,—

“A recent event, we ought to say a recent disaster, has just confirmed our doctrines, and justifies but too clearly our admonition to be careful.

“A company which started into existence last year with amazing suddenness, which filled the whole world with its flaming advertisements, crowding the newspapers, and decorating the street-corners,—a company which was most surely to enrich its stockholders, is already no longer able to pay the interest on its paid-up capital.

“As to the capital itself—but we will not anticipate events.

“All of our readers will have understood that we are speaking of the Franco-American Society of Pennsylvania Oil-Wells, which for the last eight days has been the subject of universal excitement.

“On ‘Change the shares of a hundred dollars are quoted at 4-to-5.”

Blinding tears prevented Henrietta from going on. “Great God!” she exclaimed. “O God!” Then, mastering her weakness, she began once more to read,—

“And yet if ever any company seemed to offer all the material and moral guarantees which we can desire before risking our carefully saved earnings, this company presented them.

“It had at its head a man who in his day was looked up to as a statesman endowed with rare administrative talents, and whose reputation as a man of sterling integrity seemed to lie above all suspicion.

“Need we say that this was the ‘high and mighty Count Ville-Handry’?

“Hence they did not spare this great and noble name, but proclaimed it aloud on the housetops. It was the Count Ville-Handry here, and the Count Ville-Handry there. He was to bestow upon the country a new branch of industry. He was to change vile petroleum into precious gold.

“It was especially brought into notice that the noble count’s personal fortune was nearly equal to the whole capital of the new company,—ten millions. Hence he was risking his own money rather than the money of others.

“It is now a year since these dazzling promises were made. What remains of them all? Shares, worth five dollars yesterday, worth, perhaps, nothing at all to-morrow, and a more than doubtful capital.

“Who could have expected in our day a new edition of Law’s Mississippi Scheme?”

The paper fell from the hands of the poor girl. She had turned as pale as death, and was staggering so, that Papa Ravinet’s sister took her in her arms to support her.

“Horrible,” she murmured; “this is horrible!” Still she had not yet read all. The old man picked up the paper, and read from another article, below the lines which carried poison in every word, the following comments:—

“Two delegates of the stockholders of the Pennsylvania Petroleum Company were to sail this morning from Brest for New York.

“These gentlemen have been sent out by their fellow-sufferers to examine the lands on which the oil-wells are situated which constitute the only security of the shareholders. Certain people have gone so far as to doubt even the existence of such oil-wells.”

And in another place, under the head of local items:—

“The palace of Count Ville-Handry was sold last week. This magnificent building, with the princely real estate belonging to it, was knocked down to the highest bidder for the sum of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. The misfortune is, that house and lot are burdened with mortgages, which amount together to nearly a hundred thousand dollars.”

Henrietta was overcome, and had sunk into a chair.

“But that is simply infamous,” she stammered out in an almost inaudible tone. “Nobody will believe such atrocious libels.”

Pale and deeply grieved, Papa Ravinet and his sister exchanged looks of distress. Evidently the poor girl did not at all realize the terrible nature of the circumstances. And yet, seeing her thus crushed, they did not dare to enlighten her. At last the old dealer, knowing but too well that uncertainty is more agonizing than the most painful reality, said,—

“Your father is fearfully calumniated. But I have tried to inform myself. Two facts are but too certain. Count Ville-Handry is ruined; and the shares of the company of which he is the president have fallen to five dollars, because”—

His voice changed, and he added in a very low tone,—

“Because it is believed that the capital of the company has been appropriated to other purposes, and lost in speculations on ‘Change.”

The poor old dealer was suffering intensely, and showed it.

“Ah, madam, perfectly as I am convinced of Count Ville-Handry’s uprightness and integrity, I also know that he was utterly ignorant of business. What did he understand of these speculations into which he was drawn? Nothing. It is a difficult and often a dangerous thing to manage large capitals. They have no doubt deceived him, cheated him, misled him, and driven him at last to the verge of bankruptcy.”

“Who?”

Papa Ravinet trembled on his chair, and, raising his hands to the ceiling, exclaimed,—

“Who? You ask who? Why, those who had an interest in it, the wretches by whom he was surrounded,—Sarah, Sir Thorn”—

Henrietta shook her head and said,—

“I do not think the Countess Sarah looked with a favorable eye upon the formation of this company.”

And, when objection was made, she went on,—

“Besides, what interest could she have in ruining my father? Evidently none. To ruin him was to ruin herself, since she was absolute mistress of her fortune, and free to dispose of it as she chose.”

Proud of the accuracy of her decision, she was looking triumphantly at the old dealer. The latter saw now that he must strike a decisive blow; and his sister encouraged him by a gesture. He said,—

“Pray, listen to me, madam. So far I have only repeated to you the report on ‘Change. I told you: They say the capital of the Pennsylvania Petroleum Company has been swallowed up by unlucky speculations on ‘Change. But I do not believe these reports. I am, on the contrary, convinced, I am quite sure even, that these millions were not lost on ‘Change, because they never were used for the purpose of speculating.”

“Still”—

“Still they have disappeared, none the less; and your father is probably the last man in the world to tell us how and where they have disappeared. But I know it; and, when the question is raised how to recover these enormous sums, I shall cry out, ‘Search Sarah Brandon, Countess Ville-Handry; search M. Thomas Elgin and Mrs. Brian; search